The End of Our Days
by Visions
Summary: Series of one-shots. Chapter 3, Anko-centric: "There are different ways of coping with loss in Konoha. Oftimes, a good cry will do the trick. For those who don’t know how to cry, there are therapies. For those where crying isn’t enough, there are medicine
1. Default Chapter

****

**_Series: End of Our Days_**

**_Piece 1: The Pros and Cons of Armwrestling_**

_She demands with all the authority of a Hokage that he arm wrestle her for money._

_"No thanks. I don't want you to throw something else at me in case you lose," he replies wryly._

_"I won't," she tells him._

_"Won't what? Lose or throw something at me?"_

_"Both," she says with a familiar smirk that he hasn't seen in a while._

_----------------------- _

"Oh, if isn't Jiraiya!" she exclaims in delight.

He glares in response, slamming the money on the table in front of her. The clatter of coins arouses her interest and she grins like cat readying itself for a fearsome kill. Her blue eyes gleam as she counts his offering.

"You've become my best friend, lately, you know that?" she drawls, hands greedily fingering the gold, "That is, you and your money purse."

"Shut up!" he says, purpling in shame, "I'm gonna win this time!"

Reading a book in the corner, Orochimaru snorts and is glared at by his loud teammate.

"Ever heard of flying pigs, Jiraiya?" she poses the question with a smirk.

"Pigs can't fly."

"They will… when you beat me."

Ignoring the jib, he demands, "Is it enough?"

"It's enough."

"Then let's do it!" He sits down and pushes up his sleeve, revealing a well-muscled arm. Then with barely restrained excitement, he props up his elbow on the table and focuses with all his might on the upcoming test of strength. Taking his hand firmly in her own, his opponent's look of concentration is just as, if not more so, intense. Her lips, however, quirk with a confidence that he lacks.

"One… two…" they chant together, "…THREE!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Orochimaru watches the struggle, book forgotten.

Five minutes later, the granddaughter of the Hokage is on her way to the bakery, whistling happily to the sound of jingling coins.

Jiraiya, thirteen-year-old ninja loser that he is, swears vehemently and caresses his injured knuckles, bruised from when they were slammed mercilessly against the tabletop. They are not as bruised as his pride. Without hesitation, he curses the existence of women at the same time that he mourns the loss of his paycheck.

Orochimaru rolls his eyes and returns to his reading. Some fools never learn, he thinks privately, scornfully, but on some level, he can't deny that their persistence is amusing.

-------------------------

When Orochimaru becomes sixteen, he starts to change. There is something in him that wasn't there before. It's not his snide or arrogant remarks, it's the vehemence behind his insults. Jiraiya is used to being looked down upon by his rival; he's used to scathing criticism because he knows his techniques are not as perfect. But he's not used to groundless insults, thrown out of the blue, deriding him from his incompetence. Not from a guy who has saved his life repeatedly and whom he has fought countless times to protect. He wants to think it's just a stage, like Sarutobi-sensei thinks it is. But sometimes, he catches his teammate watching him, something undecipherable in his eyes, something cold and cruel and just plain scary. Sometimes he feels like the insults are there to test him and find his breaking point and he can't help but feel that something is unraveling.

When Tsunade loses her brother, she becomes someone else. In the years following, she throws herself into her medic-nin studies. Her temper remains but her spirit and cheerfulness is dampened. Without knowing, she becomes beautiful. Her chest fills out, her hair becomes long and shiny, she has more curves than he can count. He notices, of course; with his raging hormones, how could he not? Orochimaru also becomes noticeably more courteous and suddenly, there is new tension between him and his rival.

But it's all pointless. At nineteen, she moves out of the house, leaves her childhood behind, something about not being able to study amidst all the ruckus. But he thinks, with an unusual keenness and an uncomfortable guilty ache, that it is perhaps the pain of looking at them and knowing that they couldn't protect her precious person.

The night before she leaves, he brings money, all of it. Saved up from months of missions and offers to arm wrestle her.

She beats him, of course, though he could've given her more of a fight. But when she crows over her victory and his-cash-turned-hers and her eyes, tired from hours of reading, glow a little from winning, he's glad that he didn't. Glad that he has put every penny to good use.

A month later, Orochimaru leaves with a particularly enraging comment and running out on the porch, Jiraiya yells "Good Riddance!" after the bastard.

He looks back at his house, pleased that he can now write his dirty novels without any intrusion though Orochimaru has never been noisy. He stares at the house of his childhood, that had once belonged to three, and looks at the retreating back of his rival.

The anger slides from his face down to the floor, down to somewhere where it never really existed. It is only when Orochimaru is gone from view that Jiraiya allows himself to feel the sting of abandonment.

-------------------------

He wonders if this house has the same effect on her as it does on him. He hopes so, that's why he brought her here, after all. To this place where they spent their childhood days, him, her, Orochimaru. Where together they had been Sarutobi's students, the man who at one point they all agreed was the best teacher in the world. Where they learned what it meant to lose and take life, where Orochimaru had learned countless jutsus, where he had sprung countless prank-traps to catch Sarutobi-sensei off guard, where Tsunade _always_ kicked their asses at armwrestling. He decides, in the midst of everything that is changing, that he wants this house to live forever and tells her so.

She looks out the window, restlessness emanating from her silent presence.

And so he says what he's been meaning to say all along, what he said to their other teammate, who sent him to the hospital only last week, on the frail hope that she will listen and not beat him up.

"Stay."

She does not turn. He hates the way she can't face him, especially when she's on the verge of shattering the only family he's ever had. Hadn't he been there for her when her brother died? Hadn't he been a friend, even when she had Dan, to the very end?

When she moves to the door, he slams his elbow on the table. Hard. The wood creaks, its back arching but not breaking. The elbow aches. Stitches come undone. He bleeds, and it shows through his bandage. But his hand is in the air, in ready position, waiting, holding onto nothing.

There's the challenge and the threat soon follows, "Tsunade, if you leave, I will chase you until you come back. I'll follow you down every road to every village, every town, every single damn bar until you--"

"Stop it, Jiraiya."

Her fingers hover over the doorknob. He can sense the irritation bunching in her shoulders. In her thoughts, he knows that she is calling him idiot, dumbass, meddler, fool, every insult she can imagine.

"But…" He clenches his teeth, "If you win, I'll let you go."

She says nothing.

"We'll never see each other again until we're old gits, maybe we'll die before ever seeing each other again. I promise."

He notes bitterly that it is only after his guarantee to stay away that she acquiesces. Her bag is dropped to the ground with an audible thump in all that unbearable silence. She slides into the seat before him and silently offers him her right hand. His stomach is a nervous ball, drawn so tight that he can feel his whole being shake with fear.

It is different this time. Her face is empty, eyes hollow from too much pain. They tell him that she will not stay in Konoha. He grasps her fingers, sees that shimmering green nail polish that she only started wearing after she met Dan, and thinks that he never knew how much he would missed that arrogant glint and those rough, dusty fingertips until this moment.

He tries. His face is impassive, but his heart is straining more than it has in his life. She is the last piece of the perfect puzzle that they spent ten years of their lives fitting together.

He tries. He wants to scream defy everything that is happening wake up and find it all a sick, alcohol-induced dream and sob in Sarutobi-sensei's arms the way he did all those years ago…

_This cannot be the end_, he thinks, angry that his life is ending at the age of twenty-four and the rage gives him strength to hold his ground, _This cannot be the end of everything I have worked for!_

He tries, he fails. As much as he would give to keep her, she would give much more to leave.

For the briefest second after her victory, their hands linger together. Her hand is red from pressure; he has clenched it too hard but he doesn't feel a shred of remorse nor does her face hold any complaint.

There is no good-bye. He is not surprised when she lets go first. She stands up, pigtails swishing gently, the porcelain skin of her pretty face not even flushed.

For the longest time, he will wonder if there was more that he could have done.

For years, he will relive this moment, will visit the house of his childhood over and over again to try and figure out the answer to everything that happened, will hurt so much that when the time comes for this little house to be torn down by construction, he will not care and will watch it fall, piece by piece, until it becomes worthless. And when he looks down at the pile of rubble, he will think that this heap of broken things is just like everything else in his life that had been built up, cherished, and then taken away. He will laugh, oddly enough, and afterwards, he will lose himself in alcohol, sex, and other mind-numbing activities until the next morning when he is woken up by the drums of war and the arrival of the Kyuubi.

That will be the beginning of something else, but right now, it is the end of something. Right now, she is walking away and he is debating the merit of telling her feelings on the infinitesimal chance that she will reciprocate them. If there is the slightest that a confession might guilt her into staying, if there was anything he could ever offer that might compel her to remain, anything, anything at all… If he should tell her how much he--

The door clicks shut before he can decide.

-----------------------

When they see each other again, it is just as he had promised. They are both old, their youths gone. They do not feel regret, or at least, they try not to.

When she goes back to Konoha, she pauses when she sees where their house had been. She says nothing but her eyes seem to fade a little. The inauguration goes smoothly, but she is only half-there. The other half is looking backward, trying to recapture lost memories of the village and the life she left behind.

She tries to make up for it by performing Rock Lee's operation and saving him from lifelong depression. She tries to make up for it by loving Naruto, by trying to see him as a hope for the future. She tries as much as she can, but sometimes it gets hard and all she wants to do is sedate herself and sleep the rest of life away.

They share drinks occasionally when he is bored and she can no longer take the overbearing load of paperwork. The village is big and it is always a 'coincidence' to find the other.

On the night the Uchiha leaves, when the cycle is in the process of repeating itself, Tsunade and Jiraiya find each other at the local bar. He calls her irresponsible, she throws a table at his head. A few more centimeters of accuracy and he would've been in a coma.

Then she asks him to arm wrestle for money. When he finally agrees, they lock hands, each with a cocky grin and a feeling of nostalgia. After the longest standstill, he wins, much to his surprise until he notices the way she pushes money towards him, grumbling but not wholeheartedly and without any bitterness.

He pockets it, a small consolation for over 20 years of loneliness.

Something in him winces when he thinks of how much she resembles her past self, looks back in the days when she never let him win.

It is not the same. They will never be the same again.

But he smiles anyway because she is a beautiful woman and everything about her is curvy, sweet-smelling, and clean. Except her nails, which are smudged black with dust and ink, but they are beautiful too, in their dirtiness.

...owari.

------------------------------

Part of this was originally an epilogue of a series I was planning to write about the history of the Legendary Sannins. Don't know if I'll ever write the series, but mebbe one day, yah? For now, tho, I'll just put this into a series of drabbles, titled "End of Our Days"

Oh, btw, will finish BSS over winter break. J


	2. What He Dreamt Of

**What He Dreamt Of  
**

This is a story about a lonely wolf with a cold heart.

Hah! You mean it's a story about Sasuke!

Naruto, don't say rude things like that!

But Sakura-chan, it's true! Lonely, cold-hearted bastard… it fits him perfectly.

Naruto, I'm gonna!

…Not to say this wolf was completely lonely. He had his pack. And in that pack, there was another wolf that was more baboon than wolf.

Kakashi-sensei, why are you pausing?

Because he's referring to you, idiot!

That can't be the reason…

Hn. Seems pretty accurate to me.

What'd you say, bastard?

* * *

The cackle of lightning filled the air. Kakashi watched lazily as his pupil rushed toward Tsunade with not the most pleasant expression on his face. The woman had given him a most nasty bruise on his left eye, rendering him able to use only one of his Sharingan. And in return, Uchiha Sasuke was, no doubt, ready to punch an ugly hole in the other's big-breasted body. He charged, cool completely gone, like an insane bull. 

His clumsiness would cost him.

"Huh, déjà vu," muttered the Fifth, not even batting an eye at the furious youth. She 'tapped' the ground with a finger, causing a minor tremor as a crack split the forest floor.

But Naruto had told him about this move. He wasn't going to be so easily defeated as that idiot. At the last minute, Sasuke jumped, soaring above the earthquake below. Landing neatly to the left of the split, he continued his rash assault.

"Die!" he screamed as he neared, one red eye blazing fury.

The Sannin smirked at the death threat, dodged the death blow, and repelled her attacker with a quick flick of the finger to the forehead.

For a moment, the boy seemed to hold his ground against the hit. Tsunade blinked. Oh? Was her strength diminishing?

Then, as if to reassure her of her own skill, the Chidori disappeared and as if being blown by an irresistibly strong wind, her opponent rolled.

The number one Konoho rookie and prodigy of the Uchiha clan, rolled backwards over and over again like a tumbleweed on a sunny desert day.

Kakashi, finally distracted by something more amusing than his book, burst out laughing.

Sasuke laid, then struggled feebly to his feet. When he stood, it was with a twisted wrist and black eye and a look colder than a glacier. Tsunade was surprised by the speediness of his recovery but to compliment him on it was taboo. The boy had just tried to assassinate her, after all.

"I thought you were supposed to be a genius," she sneered instead, to which he had no comment.

He walked away, his silence preserving the barrier he had set up over the years as it always had. No need to show her how frustrated he was. How crushed. She would never understand that the fight had not affected him so much as its outcome.

_Still this way... Why am I still this way? _

* * *

Neh, neh, then what happened?

Then the wolf left.

He… left?

Don't look so surprised, Sakura, you knew it was coming.

But… just like that?

More or less.

What? That's a bad ending, Kakashi-sensei! How could he leave without saying good-bye or anything?

Simple, Naruto. He's an animal. He couldn't talk.

It's still horrible. He didn't even care enough to say good-bye to his friends. Right, Sakura-chan? Right?

…Right.

That's not true.

Sasuke-kun?

It wasn't because he didn't care.

Then why?

It wasn't because he didn't care.

* * *

When he left, it was the day after his birthday. His teammates had celebrated it with him, filling his empty home with enthusiastic chatter and happy refrains of the traditional song. There had been cake, too, and though he had never been one for sweets, he had eaten two slices. It was his way of indulging himself; Sakura had smiled with so much pleasure when he had asked for seconds.

With their beaming faces before him, their excitement more palpable than his own and all the more infectious, he had almost been able to forget what was coming the next day. There had been jokes, laughter - well, a certain number of smirks on his part - and enough cheer to make even him a bit more light-hearted.

And always, just the three of them.

When the end had come, perhaps Naruto had squeezed his hand a little too hard during their final handshake, and maybe Sakura had just something else besides utter and total bliss in her green eyes, but all in all, it had been the perfect way to say their good-byes to each other. It was good-bye without actual words.

He woke the next morning, gathered his pre-packed things, and walked away from the house that was not his home and the people that were.

* * *

So where did the wolf go?

I don't know, Naruto, I don't think it matters.

What do you mean it doesn't matter! Finish your damn story, Kakashi-sensei, and tell us the ending!

Oy, a scary Sakura-chan…

Well, if you want to an ending, you'll have to make it up for yourself. Where do **you** think he went?

I think he went to Ichiraku for the seafood special ramen!

Dumbass! He wouldn't leave his pack and go there!

What do you think, Sakura?

It's obvious that he went to have more adventures.

Plausible. Sasuke?

…He went to die. Animals are like that.

00

00

Be reassured, everyone! You're all wrong. He doesn't die. If you all must know, he's going to try and go home.

…"Try" to go home? That's it? Does he get there?

Maybe.

Arrrgh! Of course he went home!

I agree with Sakura-chan!

Tch, who says he has a home? Who says he even has a family? The story's a damn lie. It would be illogical, not to mention foolish, for the wolf pack to welcome him back.

But-

He has only himself. He can't go back. He has nothing to go back to.

Sasuke-kun…

* * *

His instructor was waiting for him at the gates, book out.

"You know, it's funny. How kids grow up so fast. I still remember sending Naruto flying during the survival training and pulling you into the ground with an Earth jutsu. Not to mention, scaring Sakura out of her wits."

Icha Icha Paradise was forgotten as the man dwelt on less perverted and more amusing things. Kakashi chuckled, gave the familiar cliché, "Those were the good old days…"

The other man snorted but with good humour, continued walking.

"You can still turn back, Sasuke."

At this, his student stopped and looked at him in disbelief. "What?" he demanded with more than a tinge of annoyance.

"Didn't hear me?"

"No, I heard you… It's just funny that they're still someone that still wants to stop me. All those years ago, it was Naruto and Sakura who tried to keep me from this," he stopped, remembering. Yes, before it had been Naruto who had tried to beat him to bring him back. Sakura who had confessed her love on an empty, cold street in an useless attempt to keep him. Before, it had been those two…

"…And now it's you," he finished, refocusing his thoughts to the present.

"But it's still your choice."

"Yes, my choice," he echoed softly, though he still wondered if there had ever been such a thing for him. A distance grew on his handsome face that was more than a little resentful. He proceeded to the edge of the forest and there, his feet stilled.

Always looking too far way to look back, his teacher was thinking, The boy was always just beyond the realm of influence that could change his mind…

"Kakashi…"

Sasuke paused, letting his memory overpower him. Then, once again, he was sitting on that knoll of grass with his teammates listening to the made-up stories of their teacher. But there was no anger now, only resignation and something that resembled nostalgia.

"Do you think the wolf can ever go home again?"

It was, somehow, important to know the answer before he left.

"It doesn't matter."

"Ah, so she was wrong."

The reply was detached, cool. Yet Kakashi imagined what look rested upon the face of his student at his reply. His only clue was the sound of footsteps starting up again. The leaves were crunched with regular, angry rhythm.

Kakashi cleared his throat and the crunching stopped.

"Because the home was always with him. He carried it in his heart and never let it go. Animals are like that, you know." And softly, "People, too."

He predicted an expression of intensity, fierce yet understanding, and looked over his shoulder to see the prediction fulfilled. Black eyes gazed at him seriously, perhaps with the thought that they might never see him again. Last memories of a dead man. Maybe, maybe not. But all it really meant was that Sasuke had looked back, too.

"What will you when this is all over? After Itachi is dead, what comes next?"

"There are… there are people here that I wouldn't mind seeing again."

The boy had changed, after all. Same path, maybe, but without a doubt, a different person.

Kakashi felt a tinge of satisfaction - or was that pride- that made him smile a lazy yet oddly cheerful smile. It was his farewell. He drawled,

"Then don't forget to write."

To which the other gave the tiniest of nods, though they both knew that he had packed no paper or writing utensils and probably would not have the time to jot down even a word.

"Good-bye… sensei."

Kakashi nodded and spent the rest of the afternoon alone at the gates of Konoha, in light and memories, Icha Icha Paradise forgotten.

* * *

…and the wolf took his home with him and on the harsher nights, when no stars were to be seen and when the wind turned the world cold, he dreamt of a girl who had loved him, a boy who had been his friend, and a man who had told him a story.

owari.

...Happy endings are open endings...


	3. Be My Rain

**_Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto or characters or song. > _**

**_Be My Rain_**

_No one could say a word  
Of what had passed or should be said  
As if time stood silent,  
The dawn never came  
And the skies are empty_

_-zeraphine_

There are different ways of coping with loss in Konoha. Oftimes, a good cry will do the trick. For those who don't know how to cry, there are therapies. For those where crying isn't enough, there are medicines.

But when it comes down to it, the real cure is memory. Some just forget about it and the loss, being so complete and so far-reaching, is easier to accept than the partial ghost that lingers after a dead body. Some never let go and the ghost becomes a wound that never closes, an everlasting source of pain for the masochistic mind. It is hard to tell which method is more effective; neither guarantees absolution of guilt.

Anko doesn't know how to cry. The ability was beaten out of her by her sensei and has never returned even in his absence. She can't forget. Wiping her mind clean is like wiping at a dirty window. She presses too hard on one dark smudge and the glass breaks. Hospitals are no good because they're too white and she can't take pills because the likelihood of addiction is too high.

She has no friends to turn to, none that are alive anyway and none whom her hands haven't already slaughtered at her ex-sensei's orders. She has no home. It was burned down in an enemy attack and when her ten-year-old self ran outside, her mother remained screaming in the living room and when the second floor collapsed, well, that was the end of that.

At sixteen, Anko feels like her life is crap and considers suicide nearly everyday but her optimism, or the scraps that are left of it anyways, holds her back every single time like a leash on a rabid dog.

She's too strong to think of giving up and even after being ignored, abandoned, tortured, ostracized, hated, smiles come easily to her face because there is a certain pleasure in being despised. She lives for tomorrow because it holds danger and the promise of excitement and adventure and she dreams about such things even in the middle of nightmares.

Anko wants to live even when she has nothing because she can't stand being weak. She wants to live because it is in her blood and noone can take that away from her now (_because the one person who could decided to leave her bleeding instead_)

She wants to live,

except on nights like these, when the string tying her to sanity threatens to unravel in the dark and the curse seal burns like crazy because for some damn reason, she can't forget that guy's face and it pisses her off that an asshole like him had the nerve to--

She drinks her fifth cup of vodka and it slides like hot rain down her throat, promising temporary memory loss. She is underage, but there is a kunai up her sleeve for anyone who objects.

The person sitting next to her is far ahead, on his tenth cup, and the minute she turns to looks, he turns his head to stare back.

She is startled by the light-hearted expression underneath his mask.

_Yo__. Aren't you too young to be here?_

In their childhoods, he had never smiled like that.

It makes him look like he's happy to be alive and she tells him so rather harshly.

After a moment of silence, the lines on his face harden ever so slightly and she knows the mood has changed. He says my, my _isn't_ she the smart one but did she know that in Anbu, teammates are not permitted to see the faces beyond the masks and how _odd_ that she would say what she said because yes, he _is_ happy to be alive especially since all the strangers in his team are dead and today he was able to see their faces for the very first time after burying them and _isn't_ that a _damn _good reason for celebration.

The onslaught makes her cheeks burn with embarrassment and she clutches her glass tightly, as the rest of her self-respect slides down the drain. His cheerful sarcasm stings, like a rough kiss on a black bruise. His confession, so unexpected, is shattering.

But Anko grins back because she's suddenly too afraid of him to scowl and too tired to say sorry, _Lucky you_. _Somebody died for me today, _and she brutally wipes the dripping alcohol from her lips_, I'm celebrating, too. _

_Lucky you, _HatakeKakashi replies, smile so unwavering that it's unnatural and creepy but when he raises his cup, she lets hers clink gently – nervously - against it and it's almost an honor to be drinking with one of Konoha's best ninjas even when he seems a few clowns short of a circus.

By the time he leaves, it is raining outside. He stands in the downpour, looking upward for the longest time that Anko, watching and dry inside the bar, wonders if he's praying and to whom.

When she hits her eighth cup, she wonders why Anbu members can't see each other's faces.

When she hits her ninth, the answer doesn't seem to matter because either way, it still hurts and no matter how much she drinks, she's never going to get over Hatake's words or that expression her savior had when his heart stopped, all stunned and terrified and pleading the way a ten-year-old should never look because children should never die like that—children—should—_never_—_die—like—that_—

Her hands are shaking.

His shoulders are shaking.

She is drunk to the brim and breaking.

He is soaked to the skin and laughing; it is a weary, soft noise that blends in with the sound of the rain and then stops when he pulls on his Anbu mask and disappears.

Inside, Anko swallows her tenth drink and waits for her own good mood to start.

_…be my rain, make me forget…_


End file.
